Container lines

Hapag-Lloyd swung to a €54.2 million ($72.6 million) net loss in the second quarter from a €20.9 million profit a year ago as falling freight rates and a weaker dollar offset a modest increase in container traffic.

It is becoming increasingly difficult for a shipper to determine which carrier in the eastbound trans-Pacific has the fastest transit time between two given ports, according to a new analysis from SeaIntel, a consulting firm.

The Panama Canal Authority is warning a drought might force it to limit the drafts of container vessels traversing the waterway, reducing the amount of cargo container ships can carry.

One shipping line is based in Singapore and the other in Hong Kong, but the interim results of APL and OOCL have revealed the importance of managing costs in the current weak freight rate environment.

Hong Kong-listed Orient Overseas (International) Ltd. reported a first-half net profit of $181 million as revenue and volume at its liner shipping division OOCL increased even though revenue per 20-foot container fell more than 5 percent.

The third set of Panama Canal locks aren't even completed yet, and yet Panama continues to talk openly about a fourth set of locks to handle even bigger ships.

Maersk Line, the world's largest container line, moved on Friday to cease bookings on agricultural goods that are barred from entry into Russia as of Aug. 7.

Major container lines announced general rate increases taking place in mid-August through October this week.

Spot rates from Asia to northern Europe continued a trend of peaks and valleys this week, giving up nearly half of pricing gains achieved around Aug. 1 general rate increases.

Hapag Lloyd today announced it will divert three more Asia-Europe port calls to Antwerp, fueling concern that berthing delays at Europe’s biggest container hub will persist into the fall.

The executive who would have headed the P3 Network, Lars Mikael Jensen, has been appointed Maersk Line’s regional CEO for Asia Pacific and will be responsible for day-to-day operations in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

Intermodal volumes have been on the rise for more than a year, and additional stressors and peak-season volume surges have pushed Maersk Line to announce new tariffs on U.S. inland import and export shipments.

Rickmers Maritime’s profit more than doubled in the second quarter as the Singapore-based container shipowner got a 20 percent discount on an early loan repayment.

Russia is banning nearly all agricultural imports from countries supporting trade sanctions on Russia.

NOL Group today posted a second-quarter net loss of $54 million as container volume carried by its liner shipping division APL fell 6 percent, mainly due to the lower-yield backhaul and Asia-Middle East trades.

Increased cargo capacity in larger ships transiting the expanded Panama Canal will raise risks for the maritime industry, Allianz Group said in a new report.

The idle container ship fleet has fallen to a three-year low but likely will start to grow again at the beginning of the fourth quarter as the peak shipping season draws to a close, according to Alphaliner.

The U.S. ocean container trade via European ports, including transshipments, increased 3.8 percent year-over-year to 4.6 million laden 20-foot-equivalent units in the 12 months ending March 2014, according to PIERS, the data division of JOC Group.

Marginal changes in container imports market share show U.S. East Coast ports slowly took business away from their West Coast competition in the first half of 2014.

KKR, the U.S. private equity fund, has agreed to sell Turkey’s UN Ro-Ro to a joint venture between two local investment firms.

CSAV has raised $108 million from its shareholders to enable it to complete the financing for seven container ships under construction and to meet conditions of its planned merger with German container line Hapag-Lloyd.

Weak finances are forcing ocean carriers to rely more heavily on lessors to provide them with containers.

Consider the trans-Atlantic market an oasis of calm. For a container shipping industry focusing on the opportunities and pitfalls in the much larger Asia-Europe and trans-Pacific trades, or the rapidly growing north-south trade linking Asia to Africa and Latin America, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

China’s factory output and total new orders in July rose to their highest levels since March last year, improving the operating conditions of mainland manufacturers and supporting carrier predictions of third quarter container volume increases in the seasonal build up to Christmas.

A specialized reefer carrier is taking steps to renew its aging breakbulk fleet by purchasing two new container vessels.

Regional Container Lines has reorganized the port rotation of its Manila-Singapore (RMN) Service by adding a call at Batangas, Philippines, in an effort to circumvent growing delays at the nearby port of Manila.

The G6 Alliance is performing abysmally compared with its competitors when it comes to schedule reliability, according to a new SeaIntel report.

Several container lines announced this week general rate increases for the month of September.

More than a year after the container ship MOL Comfort and its 4,382 containers sank in the Gulf of Aden, shippers are watching developments in a Japanese court and awaiting a classification society’s report on the sinking.

Hawaii-focused Matson remains interested in entering the Alaska market if one of the two Jones Act carriers in that trade decides to sell.

Jones Act carrier Matson posted slight declines in second-quarter net profit and operating income but said it expects its operating results in the second half of 2014 to show improvement from a year ago.

Diversions from the West Coast to avoid longshore labor negotiations are creating delays of up to two to three weeks for some ocean cargo moving from Asia to the U.S. East Coast, according to a freight forwarder.

Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd. reported a sharp deterioration in its container-shipping financials for its fiscal first quarter ending on June 30th and said that rates during the remainder of its year would not recover to the degree it had projected.

Interim result season is in full swing, and the financial reports reveal carriers in the container-shipping industry searching for a silver lining.

Despite managing to restore profitability in the past year, MOL president Koichi Muto said the company’s container division continues to lose money and can’t recover without massive changes.

Hanjin Shipping posted a net loss of $194 million in the second quarter, but the weak financial performance was eased by aggressive cost cutting in its container division that managed to lift the Korean carrier’s operating profit.

Expectations of a solid peak season from Asia to both Europe and North America could lead to higher ocean container freight rates in the third quarter, but the gains are likely to be only temporary.

Finnlines, a leading Baltic short sea shipping line, today posted its biggest quarterly profit in eight years as it sold surplus ships, axed loss-making routes and disposed of non-core operations.

Positive developments in China’s export space are raising expectations that the recent strong performance of air and ocean cargo volumes will extend into a solid peak season.